THIS photo of the long-gone West Side Highway in Manhattan has been making the rounds today (it’s in Facebook’s Lost New York page) so I thought I’d wade in. Surprisingly much of what you see here, except for the highway itself, is still intact. The view is looking north at 11th Avenue and West 20th Street, where the WSH took an S-curve before resuming its uptown march.
The West Side Highway, officially called the Julius Miller Highway after the Manhattan boro president when it was built, was constructed in the early 1930s with this stretch in use until December 1973. The structure was gradually torn down in sections south of West 59th Street with the last of it removed in 1985. I remember passing beneath it to attend concerts at Pier 84 in 1983, but this was way before I conceived of Forgotten NY and began to tote a camera everywhere.
The WSH opened to traffic in 1934 and shared a number of design elements with the West Side Freight Railroad, now known as High Line Park, that included wrought iron railings. Cross streets on the trestle were marked by medallion-like devices, one of which can still be seen on Harrison Street in Tribeca. Those friezes were intricate, Machine Age in design, and very well done; it’s a shame more weren’t preserved.
The road itself was paved with Belgian blocks which made driving on it an adventure in the rain; I rode in cabs as a kid on the WSH then and even I was a bit nervous. Moreover, autos were obliged to move to the center when exiting, as on. and off ramps were located in the center of the road. This may be more frequent in Europe or Asia, but I haven’t seen that feature on any other elevated highway I have been on.
The lamps you see here are the originals (I call them the Westies), but the original Acorn fixtures were updated with SLECO “cuplights” in the 1950s. Both burned incandescent bulbs, which didn’t cut through fog well, and we’re right by the river here. A couple of these poles, equipped with Junior Bells, can be seen on a dead-end intact ramp south of West 72nd Street. In some stretches of the WSH, Donald Deskey poles replaced the Westies.
The Department of Traffic failed to maintain or repair the road, and this was before the bulk of the city’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s. A truck partially fell through a large crack or pothole in the road in December 1973 and the entire roadway was shortly closed to traffic after that. In the ensuing decade and a half, it became a park of sorts as locals went up to the roadway to hang out, and as you can see, car wrecks were dragged onto the road via the ramps.
That reminds me of an incident one night at Photo Lettering in the 1980s. One of my colleagues, named Dean Smith (not the famed University of North Carolina basketball coach) lived in Staten Island and offered to lift me back to Bay Ridge in the wee hours after our shifts. He used the Gowanus Expressway and almost got us killed twice, though neither occasion was his fault. Once he had to avoid a wreck in the middle of the road like you see above. This was when the city was turning off every other streetlamp to save money. On the other occasion, he had to swerve out of the way of a crossing vehicle and slammed into the guardrail. I lost my glasses and got bruised ribs, but the belt saved me going through the window. After that I resumed taking the mugger moving subway instead of riding with Dean.
The two large buildings in the photo are still there. On the right, the loft building with the chamfered (slanted) edge at 11th and 20th is still there. Out of the photo on the south side of 20th is a building that was once a women’s prison. In the center of the photo is the House of 1000 Windows, the Starrett-Lehigh Building, a huge freight terminal and warehouse occupying an entire block from 26th-27th Streets and 11th and 12th Avenues completed in 1932. It was jointly built by the Lehigh Valley RR and the Starrett Corporation (William Starrett, the builder of the Empire State Building, was called “the founder of the American skyscraper.”) The Lehigh Valley Railroad could once enter the building, with its cars accessing floors via elevator (trucks use them now). Traces of carfloats and tracks can still be seen at the waterfront. The building was a forerunner of the International Style glass walled design popular later in the century.
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8/8/24
23 comments
Is William Starrett the builder of Starrett City?
His company was. He died in 1932, less than a year after Starrett completed construction of the Empire State Building. The company also built Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village and, I would assume, Met Life’s Riverton Houses in Harlem, which has buildings and apartments that look just like Stuy Town, where Blacks were barred.
Your blog is always a fantastic journey. Thank you!
I used to LOVE walking the abandoned WHS section from Canal St. to The Battery in the very late 70’s! It was a calm and peaceful place to escape the hustle and bustle of the streets below, while enjoying the river on one side a mix of ancient and modern buildings on the other, as you’d walk over murals which had been drawn on the roadway, and mingled with sunbathers and skaters. I was devastated when they finally tore it down. It was the best “park” one could ever have in NYC!
A Chevy Vega maybe?
I had a part time job in high school at the WTC and used to love walking home after work on the
then shut down West Side Hwy.Like having your own private sidewalk!And what a view at night!
Looks like a Camaro. “Own private sidewalk” -Yes!
Chris: It looks more like a second-generation Camaro to me (who would have been foolish enough to steal a Vega?).
There were five different medallions, each being a different Seal of New York City, covering various Dutch, English and American time periods. Many were preserved and were sold by the City for many years. They were cleaned of all paint and are very heavy cast metal. (I don’t know if they still have any available.) I purchased a full set, which I have had for something better than 30 years. I never had a plan for them and still don’t. They are sitting in my basement waiting for that plan to hatch. There was also another medallion, which was at each cross street, and had the name of that street. I clearly remember standing on the street and looking up at the one for “Desbrosses Street” and trying to figure out how to pronounce it. I’m still not sure how to pronounce it!
Haha I also have one of the round medallions, purchased for $200 or so when city sold them off. And likewise I have dutifully moved it from apartment to apartment and house to house for over 40 years now….and still don’t knowhat to do with it!
No different from my purchase of five lights which used to hang from the 59th Street Bridge (certificate of authenticity says “Ed Koch Bridge” which I will never use) with the idea of using them in my backyard. A dozen years later, still in my garage.
I got to know the West Side Highway pretty well in the 50’s-60’s My uncle had a summer place in Westchester and he’d take us over the Brooklyn Bridge, down Chambers Street (which still had a thriving market going on), north on the WSH (where ocean liners like the Queen Elizabeth could still frequently be seen), and across the Henry Hudson Bridge for the 10¢ toll. Later, when I moved to Westchester and drove down to Brooklyn to visit, I’d repeat the same route. I think the bridge toll might have increased to 25¢, there were fewer ocean liners, the Chambers Street Market was mostly gone, but the WSH remained, although becoming increasingly more decrepit. I drove in the center lane because there was always debris along the curbs and getting a flat was an even greater fear than skidding on wet cobblestones! After the partial highway collapse in the early 70’s, I made the FDR my goto route for getting through Manhattan.
We traveled that highway a lot when i was young on the way to the George Washington Bridge. What you call “Westies” I called “Empire State Building,” as the poles look like that building. Also, I thought it was weird that an elevated road would be paved by Belgian blocks (I incorrectly called them cobblestones).
Hard to describe how utterly ruined much of NYC was in the early 1970s. That highway was 40 years old at the time, not exactly ancient. It looks like something from a zombie apocalypse film. Would love to know the mindset of politicians and residents back then. I looks like “Meh, who gives a damn?” was how most folks operated.
In my nearly sixty years driving a car in NYC, the West Side Highway was definitely the most challenging thoroughfare I ever navigated, either in my own vehicle or as a yellow can driver, which I did for two stints in the late sixties-early seventies. A rainy night on the WSH could be a recurring nightmare. The photo shows one of its worst segments, the hairpin turn at 23rd Street with the center exit ramp. I’m glad that the WSH is long gone.
Sometime in the 70s I saw some hippie men chopping a cast iron eagle off the WSY with a torch.In broad
daylight and do as ya please.How they lowered and made off with it I dunno as I didnt stick around.Probably
ended up on some yup’s estate.
”Yes, I acquired this piece back in the ’70s.”
” I like to think of it as a testament to my excellent taste”
Likewise have complete set of medallions, selling on ebay. If appropriate for this site, as per Kevin, you can contact me if you want to purchase any.
‘…This was when the city was turning off every other streetlamp to save money…’
Another great Abe Beame NYC Fiscal Crisis move, like when he started laying off cops and firemen. I never drove on the old West Side Hwy (NY-9A) but I remember when that truck fell through.
The Pulaski Skyway in NJ has the same horrible ramps in the middle of the highway. Just about the same vintage.
“Lefties” -Seems very appropriate for NYC…..
The West Side Highway was MURDER on a motorcycle. Every time I used it on my Ducati I thought of riding the Coney Island Cyclone.
I had a friend who had a mishap on his motorcycle on the WSH….ended up cracking his helmet on the guardrail, and was a hair from going over the side and down into the street!
I recall the BQE Meeker St (and maybe one other) exit used to be center/left sided?
LOL maybe that’s my father’s car? Some time in the 1960s, he hit one of the infamous potholes on the WSH, blew out a tire and hit the guardrail. Came within a millimeter or so of being paralyzed. (Don’t know if his car even had seat belts back then.) That highway was a mess. I do recall riding on it and at one point, you could view an actual semi truck sitting on a building roof, some sort of advertisement for a trucking company, I think.